Waterfront – Tower Complex

Old Dock Area, Savona

The redevelopment of the port area was envisaged as part of the Urban Redevelopment and Sustainable Development of the Territory Program in 2000. An Italsider site and a parking garage that had a heavy impact on the port landscape were demolished, and the Old Dock was redesigned as a new maritime station able to accommodate cruise ships and at the same time offer a new living space. To reconstruct the new block, the project resumed the proportions of the nineteenth-century city by creating a sequence of new public squares, a hotel, offices, commercial premises and homes.

The project, with the Bofill studio, included a courtyard bordered by 5-storey buildings and a 19-storey tower, creating a new view of the city at the mouth of the port. The various rooms are connected by a staircase: the “upper square” to the north, and the “lower square” to the south. The facades of the buildings are made up of large glazed surfaces and deep terraces paved in wood, protected by sliding wooden sunshades and by continuous glass railings that rest on metal casings with a shaped profile, recalling the models of the architecture of ships that dock right in front.